An Empirical Study on the Omission of Third-Person Singular -s in Writing

Hongbo Qi

doi:10.5539/ijel.v12n2p78

Abstract

Enlightened by studies in inflectional morpheme in L2 speech, this article reports a survey on the use of third-person singular -s in writing by 6 L1 Chinese L2 English learners enrolled in Lancaster University in 2014. The results show that these undergraduate students omitted almost half -s marking in obligatory contexts but made little or no mistake when they actually used third-person singular -s. The students were more successful in using be form than -s form. The grammar of these students seemed to be &ldquo;fossilized&rdquo; in -s marking since they made no improvement after attending a pre-sessional program at Lancaster University. Whiling echoing the findings of previous studies on either Chinese or other English learners (adults or Children), this article concludes that the acquisition third-person singular -s is a challenge for adult Chinese English learners in writing. The implications for English language teaching in China are also discussed.

Highlights

Omission of verbal inflection in L2 (Note 1) acquisition has become a focus of study in the field of second or foreign language research in recent decades (Zobl & Liceras, 1994; Lardiere, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Prevost & White, 2000; Ionin & Wexler, 2002; Franceschina, 2001; Yuan, 2001, 2003; Chang, 2005; Hopp, 2010; Jiang, Novokshanova, Masuda, & Wang, 2011; Jensen, Slabakova, Westergaard, & Lundquist, 2020; Nguyen & Newton, 2021; Wakabayashi, Kimura, Matthews, Akimoto, Hokari, Yamazaki, & Otaki, 2021; etc.)
The results show that these undergraduate students omitted almost half -s marking in obligatory contexts but made little or no mistake when they used third-person singular -s
As has been pointed out in introduction of this article, the purpose of our study is to find out whether the third-person singular -s is extremely difficult for Chinese English learners to acquire

Summary

Introduction

Omission of verbal inflection in L2 (Note 1) acquisition has become a focus of study in the field of second or foreign language research in recent decades (Zobl & Liceras, 1994; Lardiere, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Prevost & White, 2000; Ionin & Wexler, 2002; Franceschina, 2001; Yuan, 2001, 2003; Chang, 2005; Hopp, 2010; Jiang, Novokshanova, Masuda, & Wang, 2011; Jensen, Slabakova, Westergaard, & Lundquist, 2020; Nguyen & Newton, 2021; Wakabayashi, Kimura, Matthews, Akimoto, Hokari, Yamazaki, & Otaki, 2021; etc.). In Chang’s (2005) term, the first approach to the issue is based on Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, while the second one is based on Missing Surface Hypothesis. 3) argues that acquiring properties of the functional morphology is the most challenging part of learning a second language. Wakabayashi et al (2021, p. 735) suggests that some verbal morphemes are extremely difficult to acquire in learning English, a typical example is third-person singular -s

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion